The Mountains Of The Moon
by Daria4
Summary: Scott Tracy is off to the rescue again in an unlikely place. References to a past male/male relationship, no sex, mild cursing. From DH Brooks, the author of "A Legacy Of The Pacific" from Cedar Grove Books.


THE MOUNTAINS OF THE MOON

by Daria

Disclaimer: All Thunderbirds characters are the property of Granada/ITV; all rights reserved. This work of fiction is solely for non-profit entertainment. Please do not republish this work without notice to and permission from the author.

Outer space. It doesn't matter how many times I've been up here---it always gives me the creeps. It really shouldn't, especially since my dad, Jeff Tracy, was an astronaut throughout the earlier end of my "wonder years." I grew up with the concept of the majesty of soaring through the clouds off into the unknown, those stories told as seen through the eyes of my dad who had viewed it all first hand: the forbiddingly cold vacuum of the mesosphere and beyond, the icy dust of space particles and the view of the Earth rising over the silvery mountains of the moon.

Dad was a space man turned entrepreneur, a man whose astro-construction firm kept him constantly busy and perennially estranged from his family while building structures for the World Space Agency as it pioneered colonies on Earth's only natural satellite. It was all so enthralling to the small boy I was at the time, but then I was listening in awe from the vantage point of my dad's lap on his infrequent visits home. The only thing that could draw me away from such a moment was the cry of my younger brother Virgil, and then, soon afterward, the wailing of the new baby, John, and later still the bawling of baby Gordon and then Alan. None of them are babies any more---except to Grandma, of course---as all five of us Tracy brothers will forever be children to be loved and spoiled by her. The younger ones are no longer swaddled in diapers but no less in need of a helping hand from their eldest brother, all of which brings me to this silent sentinel of an outpost sailing above the serene blue of the Earth. We call it "Thunderbird 5." We call these systematic upgrades to the satellite that I'm here to help with "Tricking Out The Tin Can." And we call our blonde, slight and studious Space Monitor..."John?"

I watch him shamble about from one console to another, silently analyzing meters and dials, his clipboard clutched in one hand, his pen clenched between his lips, his eyebrows constantly knitted. "John, is everything ok with you?" I ask him again, since he didn't respond the first time. This time, my question merits a slow, deliberate search of my face and then a quick look around the observation deck.

"What...Scott?" he finally replies as if his brain has only just caught up to the first time I'd called out to him.

"I was just wondering if you're all right---up here, I mean. That's all," I clarify my question, a real sense of concern evident on my face.

He stops his work, a distant, wistful look on his angelic face. His shoulders shrug, an unreassuring half-smirk crossing his lips, a tired look clouding his dark eyes. "I guess so, Scott," is about all he can muster up. I suppose I should be pleased he can work up that much enthusiasm. In his situation, I'm sure that I certainly couldn't.

A little time passes. I rip some skin off of my thumb while racheting a hex nut too tightly, my expletive explosion shocking John's sallow cheeks red. He immediately puts pen and clipboard down and doctors my wounded digit after unceremoniously yanking it out of my mouth. A spritz of anti-infection gel, a crisp, skin-colored, medicinal-smelling flexible bandage and little Scotty is free to play in the sandbox of dial-covered panels we're repairing again, with John having returned to his pad and pen, back to running his calibration checks.

"Gee," I sniff, "At least Mom would have offered me a cookie to soothe away my owie!"

John gazes blankly down at what he's just written, pen still trailing off at his last figure. With a slow, deliberate blink, he oh-so-quietly drawls, "She hasn't been in charge of the cookie jar or owies for a long while now." He's right. It's been a very long while.

Back to work, and it seems like hours from one word to another, a stark contrast between this caustically sterile environment and the often boisterous and rowdy daily life back home on Tracy Island. The silence is deafening, so I work up a chisel to break it. "John---how come there are no soft drinks in the 'fridge?"

A puzzled look forward, a minimal toss of that thick blonde quiff of his and then a sideways shift of his pursed lips. "I reckon I ran out of 'em about a month back. I should be drinking more water anyway; it's better for my kidneys, though the sodas were better for my digestion. You know how your guts get compressed in space and all, even with the gravity compensators..."

He never looked at me. Not once. It's like he was talking to that monitor screen he and Dad use to communicate from the satellite to base and back. John wears a vacant, soulless look in his eyes these days when he's using that thing. It had gotten more and more difficult for me to watch him in the days before I came up here. That disembodied voice coming from a monotoned head---that's just not my little brother. I couldn't help but think that some alien had boarded the ship and kidnapped John, leaving this lifeless husk in his place. The kid brother I grew up with who shrinks into the sofa cushions with a fit of the giggles during the soft porn film fests which we've arranged on any occasion when Dad takes off for a few days at a time on business, who hides a kicker up his sleeve when playing Poker and cheats at Gin but likes playing Old Maid better, who thinks that old-time comedienne Gracie Allen's bizarre "logic" is actually brilliant, who can recite the entire script for that old film "Casablanca" and always cries and sings along when Victor Laszlo leads Rick Blaine's band in singing "Les Marseilles"---THAT'S my brother John. This shell who can barely remember what day it is...isn't.

Looking for a technical excuse for what my eyes perceived, I had been thinking that the video-cam on the monitor in Thunderbird 5 needed to be color adjusted to clear up the green tinge on John's face, but I knew in my heart that neither my eyes nor the camera were lying. I insisted on coming up with Brains to help with adding the new components, not for any joy of doing the tedious wiring and recalibrating it takes, Heaven knows, because I really have little patience for it. I volunteered to lend a hand because I just had to check on my marooned kid brother, the one whose dark blue eyes had had the lights snuffed out of them.

I've told our dad for almost two years now that this is a beastly function---lengthy periods of isolation monitoring the world for distress signals, often with no relief for several months at a time. Oh, at first that was not to be the case, of course. Alan, our youngest brother, and John were to share the job equally, each taking a one month tour of duty to relieve the other. But, being the baby and doomed to stay that way, Alan soon found ways to wangle more time on Earth-bound duties and less away in space. Falling deeper and deeper into love's abyss with our friend and engineer, Tin-Tin, was certainly a large part of the change. Alan's desire to be constantly by her side became an often-heard excuse for not honoring his commitment to relieve John, and once he'd finally proposed marriage to her, there was no turning back. John, ever the quiet, hopeful optimist, merely played a game of "grin and bear it" for Tin-Tin's sake, with Dad finding every excuse to give in to Alan's demands to spend more time with his fiance'. "You want grandchildren eventually, don't you, Dad?" Those words still echo in my ears anytime I replay scenes of Alan's obstreperous pleading with Dad in my head. "And anyway, John LIKES it up there. He's a quiet, stuck-up, tedious space case; we all know that. Besides, he's so aloof that no one even notices when he IS at home, so what difference does it make?"

Dad hadn't objected to that line, but I certainly did. I've missed John greatly while he's in space and it damn well makes a difference to me knowing that he's by himself, sealed away from both the harsh environment of outer space and the warming, protective comfort of a loving family. There are so many things to love about this kid, too. I miss his superb baking and the glorious aromas that waft from the kitchen whenever he's home. Then there's his funny little forgiving smirk after one of Gordo's corny jokes, as well as his bashfulness, his curiously infectious sense of rhythm, his energy, his disarming and gentle charm that can turn forceful and persuasive when he's arguing about something he truly believes in. I miss the way he can bolt over a piece of patio furniture like a gazelle and land with the grace of a Premier Danceur from the Ballets Russes, then bound the stairs two at a time like a maniac...or stand there on the beach, flaxen hair ablaze in the orange setting sun like a vision of a youthful Poseidon surveying his dominion. I miss my little brother very much.

See...Dad doesn't understand John like I do; neither he nor Alan "get" what John's all about. Sure, his head is in the clouds most of the time. Sure he's a dreamer who has always been far more comfortable staring up at the sky than trying to participate in a conversation at the dinner table where, more times than not, he's been drowned out by the noisy clowning of our younger brothers, Alan and Gordon, or the techie-chat between Dad, Tin-Tin, Brains, Virgil and I.

Poor John---he never did feel comfortable trying to compete for attention with those two younger brothers of ours. He couldn't...especially after Mom died when Alan was so little. I can still see John's huge eyes trying to follow Dad's admonishment to him. "You'll have to be a big boy now; you're not a baby any more. It's the little ones who need attention. After all, they don't have a mother to care for them," Dad used to tell John when he, still little more than a toddler himself, would reach up to him, aching to be held or dandled on Dad's knee like the smaller boys. He didn't have a mother to care for him either---all he had was a nine year old brother trying to take her place. I used to take his tiny hand and pull him away, often trying to fulfill his longing for attention by reading a picture book story to him. I could wipe away his tears, but I couldn't do a damn thing about that gnawing ache inside of him as he wandered away from Dad with those big eyes of his downcast, wondering why his needs weren't as important as those of "the babies."

"It'll only take another six hours to complete this upgrade, John, now that Brains has finished the computer programming," I advise him as I plop down into a nearby red upholstered chair as if I were sitting astride Bravo, our long gone rocking horse, taking advantage of the backrest to cradle my chin atop my folded arms. "I'm taking a much needed 'union five,' and I think you should too, little brother. You work too hard."

Not taking my words to heart, John continues to plug away, configuring some digital readouts on a board we're replacing. "I mean it, John!" I order him, kicking a chair across the highly-polished floor tiles in his direction. It surprises him, causing his left knee to buckle as the chair's seat brushes against the back of his leg.

"Hey! I'll stop when I'm ready, Scott!" he states brusquely, icy cornflower eyes shooting frozen daggers into my flesh. He then softens his ruffled features as he hears his own angered voice in the air as if hearing any voice at all were a rarity for him. Looking startled, as if the sound had traveled to his ears from somewhere in the far reaches of the heavens, he apologizes.

"I'm...I'm sorry, Scott," he says quietly, eyes inspecting the floor as they quite often do. "I..I didn't mean to..."

"It's ok, it's ok, John! Don't...don't worry about it," I stop him, waving a hand to calm him. "I just don't want you to overwork yourself, that's all."

"Sure, Scott...sure. I'll take a break in a minute. Honest," he says, adding a pleasant smile to win me over. Twenty minutes later, he's still standing there wiring that panel, working too hard, quietly pretending he's somewhere else.

Hours later, we're nearing the finish line on the repairs. A good thing, too, since Dad has a hissy-fit---and understandably so---in any instance when retrofitting and equipment upgrades cause communication gaps. Anytime we're out of service, it could mean a distress call somewhere is going unanswered. As International Rescue agents, we worry that someday all of this technology on which we rely so heavily could delay or backfire on us, causing us to fall down on the job for the first time. No one takes on the worries of the world more than our dad, but sometimes he forgets just how much the rest of us care and how seriously we take our calling.

-------"Base to Thunderbird 5! Base to Thunderbird 5! John? Come in!" ------

I'm in the galley, but I can hear Dad's booming, disembodied voice echoing around the circular cabin. I shouldn't be surprised if they'd picked him up aboard the Mars Exploration Vehicle out in deep space. While microwaving one of John's day-old scones, I can hear him hesitantly advising Dad that the refitting and upgrades are nearly complete but that we have been offline continuously for the last 47 minutes. Why oh why oh why does he have to be so honest? You'd think he was still in Catholic school with the nuns breathing down his neck, ruler in hand, just waiting for him to slip up!

Immediately, the next sound I hear is the crack of thunder of Dad tearing John up one side and down the other. To follow: an uninterrupted two minute harangue questioning whether John understands that International Rescue and millions of Earthbound potential victims are relying on him and that the fate of the whole organization rests in timely service provided by our Space Monitor, and how dare he put so much in jeopardy. Score one big slam dunk in the ego-deflating department, Dad. Thanks a lot...not.

I've had enough. Slamming down my snack, I march over to the video console, put myself between the silent, shuddering, shame-faced John and our bellowing blowhard of a dad...and switch the monitor off. Dad will be fine...eventually. By now, Grandma is certain to be chewing him out the way he had done John. Knowing Grandma, Dad will be getting a cheerful little earful from our protective matriarch for a good while to come, which serves him right. And here I am again...storming through the hellfires of Dad's incendiary temper to pick up the pieces of a shattered little brother, attempting to mend the shards of a singed soul with kind words and a big brother's strong shoulder to cry on. That's if John would allow himself to be human enough to cry and allow me to attempt a rescue...but he won't. He's not a baby any more.

He winces and pulls away from me as I reach out to him, as if his arm had been burned by the proximity of a warm touch. Without a word, he returns to his repairs, dropping to the floor to pull himself out of sight under the recording deck.

"You shouldn't let him talk to you like that," I offer, hoping he'll at least allow himself the relief of a rant. He doesn't. "Brains told him how many hours to expect the repairs to take and that it would systematically knock us off-line for periods while we worked on it. How could you just stand there and let him tear you a new hole for something that's not your fault? Why can't you stand up to him?"

Ask a silly question. He can't. It's just not in John to fight where Dad is concerned; it's a life pattern he's not willing to make the effort to change. Maybe he just doesn't believe it can change. He should. I'm going to make it change.

"We're done," I announce a few minutes later after soldering and recoding the last control panel. "Come out from under that console, John. We're going home." Not content to settle for his lack of movement, I reach down, firmly grip his ankles and haul him out from beneath the console under which he's been puttering away. "The dials lit up seven minutes ago. We're through. Let's go."

Hollow-eyed, my brother can barely work up the energy to protest, but eventually he does. "I can't leave; you know that. Alan hasn't planned to relieve me until the first of next month; that's still two weeks away. I'm OK with the repairs now, thanks to you. You've done enough to help me. I've just got to clear away the tools and run the wavelength test. Why don't you go wake up Brains and head on home? Or...I could fix your dinner first. You shouldn't fly all that way on an empty stomach."

"You haven't stopped for a break since we began, but you're worried about MY stomach? You really take the cake, kiddo," I state solemnly, shaking my head. "Get your gear together while I tell Brains that he's taking over for a while. We launch in five minutes."

My mind is made up, my arms are folded; this big brother is taking no guff. But John just stands there, too weak to move, too defeated to break away, too bone-tired to fight about it. "Fine. I'll pack for you!" I let him know, stalking off toward the bedroom to find his red leather tote bag.

Packing hurriedly, I toss into his bag his bed clothing, his toiletries from the head and the novel he's currently reading whenever he gets a spare moment. While turning off his alarm clock, my eyes fall upon the small, silver-framed portrait of John beaming contentedly while held tightly in the broad, flannel-clad, protective arms of Sandy---his forsaken love---as they stood in front of their charming little bungalow in the hills below the Palomar Observatory in California. Those two had renovated it over the course of a year into a tasteful and cozy nest. They were the sweetest couple: so much in love, so crazy about each other that they finished each other's sentences, and so much alike in their love of astronomy, music and art. Until the day John tearfully pried himself away, boxed up his happiness and left it all behind for life in the South Pacific, he was the most madly in love person I've ever known.

John, like all of us Tracy brothers, had been forced to make the choice between a private existence on the mainland and a secluded life on Tracy Island and the clandestine family business of protecting lives in perilous situations. It's such an irony that International Rescue's nature is to protect the endangered so that they can rejoin their loved ones---the same organization that was the ruin of the happy couple in this portrait. Imagine having to turn his back on that long sought-after love and affection and a sense of belonging in return for the cold comfort of a sometimes ill-tempered, often overly demanding father and a tin can floating in outer space. I couldn't have done it, and only Father could have asked John to do it and been successful at it. "A dedicated life," like that of firemen or monks: that's what this rescue outfit has offered us all and that's the life we've all accepted. But sometimes the result of that choice is a hard thing to stomach, and this is one of those times.

Folding the stand, I add the portrait to the pile in the bag and return to the deck, only to find John calibrating circuitry. Again. That's it. "I said get into the goddamn rocket, boy---and that's an order! Got me!"

Softly, he speaks in a voice just above a hush. "You haven't yelled at me for a long time, Scott."

"You haven't given me a reason to for a long time...but you're really living on the edge about now, kid. I'm trying to save your life, here, if you'll let me."

His face takes on a serene shine, partly from the glowing dials all around him, partly from a fountain of strength deep within him. "This IS my life, Scott; this is what I am now," he sighs, dropping down into the chair I'd formerly occupied, his legs crossed low at the ankles. "This is what I do. Almost everything else that I was...it's all gone. I had to leave it all behind to become what Father wanted...what I was sure that I wanted. I left my work, my students, my lecture tours, my book junkets, my little house, my beach...my...my romance. I had to leave it all. You don't understand because it's different for you; you didn't have to make the same kind of choice. I mean, yeah, you had to leave your mainland life behind too, but parts of it followed you to the island anyway or you can pick up and return to your old hangouts within two hours by jet. I left everything I love down there far below this place, except for my telescope and my star charts. It's just me and the rabbit in the moon up here. I'm used to it. It's all I've got. And you know...it's not so bad, really. There are a whole lot of people down there on that swirling blue marble with way more to kick about than I have. All told, I'm pretty lucky."

"Lucky?" He's really lost it. "It's bad enough that you look like that hunk of green cheese up there for lack of sunshine, but you're so worn out from all of this that you can't even put up a decent fight any more. Tracy men fight the good fight to save lives, and no life is more dear to me than that of one of my brothers. I've got your stuff and we're getting you out of here. I'll switch the board to auto-transmit reports directly to the base until Brains gets up; he's tired and needs a couple of more hours of sleep. Then Virg can fly Brains home when Alan gets back from Tokyo and heads up here. Move."

"I guess I have no choice, have I?" he asks, his wan face all but motionless.

"Yes, you do," I sigh, "Your choice is to make a stand for your life and your sanity or to say 'no' and lose your last marble while you allow Alan and Dad to trample you into the ground. Sure, boy, I can drag your butt through that airlock and uncouple these machines, but if you're not willing to stand up for yourself and live your life on your own terms, it won't make any difference what I do to try to assist you. You'll still be trapped in the sky inside a shell of your own making. Now what's it going to be?"

It's an uneventful trip home aboard Thunderbird 3. John seems to take on a new life sitting at the helm, the yellow of the retro art deco cabin mingling with his flaxen hair and pale skin to give him an eerie, jaundiced look. I call in to base to explain the plan for John's vacation long before we touch down through the Round House. Dad's stack immediately billows fume and sparks at the news, but he backs down when Brains chimes in with me on a three-way about the severe mental strain that the long periods of isolation in space were inflicting upon John. Brains always welcomes the quiet contemplation aboard the satellite, away from the merry pranksters and endless chatter on the island, so he's fine with the promise of a two week reprieve from Gordon's jokes and the other craziness at home.

Tin-Tin, cheered by the news of my victory over "tyranny," immediately takes off to the hangars to run a systems check on our fast little jet, The Ladybird, preparing it for a pleasure trip. Upon word of our impending return, Grandma happily sets about laying out fresh clothing to be packed for a two week journey, overjoyed at the news about her "Johnny" coming home. Reportedly, she spends the last few moments of my flight in with John wickedly humming "California, Here I Come" like an errant former chorus girl full of malignant glee each time she passes Dad in the hallway which connects all of our bedrooms. She's an evil little old woman when she's got a mad on. It makes her all the more endearing...at least to us kids. Can't say as Dad feels the same about that!

In the cockpit of the Ladybird, I check the dials and don my aviator glasses, as does John sitting beside me. "Ok, Ladybird---you're clear for take-off," comes Dad's rich voice over the speaker on the dash before us. "Tell John to enjoy himself, Scott---and that's an order!"

"Don't worry, Dad," I call to him as I taxi the plane down the runway. "I've already read John the Riot Act. He'll be giggling in no time. In fact, he can't stop blushing as it is." Signing off, I can't help but grin at the vision of my slim, nattily dressed brother, finally smiling at the thought of having some time to get away from his tedious, stifling role within the organization.

"Where are we heading, Scott?" he asks timidly, as if I wouldn't let him have his say over his own vacation.

"California, John. You've got a date with a gorgeous little hideaway overlooking hills and trees, the other end of the Pacific and the Palomar Observatory, as well as a bearded, pipe-chomping teddy bear who still worships the ground you walk on. I'm aiming to see that you make it into his waiting arms."

"Doc!" he says, blinking in disbelief. "But...why would Sandy even want to see me again? And what am I going to tell him about...us?"

I grin broadly, knowing what's awaiting John at the end of our flight. "When I called him, he was so overjoyed at the thought of seeing you again that he said he didn't care why the family had taken you away from him. He understands it's a visit only---that you'll have to return to the island. Whatever else you tell him is up to you, minding that you're sworn to silence about the details of International Rescue, which goes without saying. I have a feeling that a couple of days of crazy sex is just what the doctor ordered..." I wink, he blushes, he giggles...he giggles some more. 'Nuff said.

"But what about you, Scott?" he hesitantly asks. "It's not much of a holiday for you, playing chaperon for me, I mean. I feel awfully guilty about this."

Looking wistfully through the cockpit window, I smile quietly to myself, marveling at the golden setting sun behind us and the silvery orb of the mystic moon dangling silently above us---that dusty satellite which had stolen so much of our father's time from us as children. "Oh, don't worry about me; I'll do fine," I assure John. "I know my way around Southern California quite well. While you're mending fences and sowing your wild oats at your favorite cozy hamlet, I'll be painting the town red. Just try to stop me. I'm going to drown myself in the eyes of some gorgeous, voluptuous surfer girl and don't you dare come to my rescue!"

------DB


End file.
